


canary in a coal mine

by cacowhistle



Series: dsmp anthology [5]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Mostly hurt, hopeful ending kind of but not really, temporary technically, tommyinnit can catch these fucking hands im in mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cacowhistle/pseuds/cacowhistle
Summary: It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.It’s a painful tug in his soul that lasts all of a handful of seconds, maybe, but the seconds are enough to leave him breathless and lost and ice-cold, shivering and curling in on himself as everything goes dark.It’s nothing, and everything, and then nothing again, and then it’s cold and he feels blazing hot as his hands meet the ice-cold blank nothingness of the ground and he is painfully aware of the silence.or;a meeting between two brothers in the afterlife.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: dsmp anthology [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168076
Comments: 23
Kudos: 230





	canary in a coal mine

It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.

It’s a painful tug in his soul that lasts all of a handful of seconds, maybe, but the seconds are enough to leave him breathless and lost and ice-cold, shivering and curling in on himself as everything goes dark.

It’s nothing, and everything, and then nothing again, and then it’s cold and he feels blazing hot as his hands meet the ice-cold blank nothingness of the ground and he is painfully aware of the silence.

Silence, and then footsteps.

“Who the fuck is it this time--”

He knows that voice, knows it well, knows it with his eyes closed and his ears plugged, but Tommy can’t pull himself together enough to open his eyes and _see it._

They were both canaries in a coal mine. The button room and the prison were cages in their own rights, locking the two of them away and choking them to silence. Tears stream down Tommy’s face, hot against cold, clammy cheeks, and he can’t move, can’t think straight. All he sees is Dream’s awful face.

“Tommy?”

Wilbur sounds horrified.

He throws himself into his brother’s arms, clinging to him as he sobs so hard it _hurts,_ and everything already hurts but this just makes it hurt worse. Wilbur’s arms wrap around him, careful and shaking, fingers clutching at the back of his shirt. Tommy breathes in the cedar and the soul sand and the smoke and cries, long and hard and shaking, the two of them sinking down to their knees, Wilbur propping Tommy up against his chest as he cries.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Wilbur whispers, and Tommy can’t do anything but shake.

“He took all three,” Tommy gasps out, and Wilbur’s fingers curl into his shirt and clutch him tighter and Tommy can’t help the next keening cry he lets out into his brother’s shirt.

Wilbur mumbles sweet nothings into Tommy’s bloodied hair and holds him close, holds him tight. He shouldn’t be here, this goes against everything Wilbur has ever known--Tommy does not die, he does not stumble into the afterlife shaking and crying and beaten and bruised. If he were to die, which he isn’t supposed to, he’d go out with a bang, not--not whatever this is, crumpled and crying in his lap.

_(He knows that this, too, is a lie. Any child would stumble into the afterlife like this. Anyone at all, would, for what is someone in death but a new type of child, really?)_

“I’ve got you,” Wilbur murmurs, holding him tight, and he means it this time.

He holds him until Tommy is ripped from his arms with the magic of resurrection, back to the land of the living, to be a caged canary once more.

**Author's Note:**

> CURRENTLY IN THE ANGER STAGE OF GRIEF HOW ARE YOU GUYS DOING. catch me over on tumblr twitter & twitch @ cacowhistle i am so pissed off


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